Stage 19 of the Tour de France took a little diversion through Marcel Proust's Illiers-Combray, which describes itself as "the cradle" of his masterwork, A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. If Bradley Wiggins has managed to capture the hearts of the French, that can be partly explained by the way he harks back to the 1960s, reminding them of Tom Simpson, the most popular Englishman ever to race a bike in France – and English mod culture which ran parallel to Simpson's career.

The penultimate day of the Tour saw Wiggins strengthen his hold on the yellow jersey with an emphatic time trial win. Now more than three minutes clear of his nearest rival, he is expected to ride to victory on the Champs Elysées in Paris today.

But even as he looked ahead to glory, Wiggins was paying homage to the past. His appearance, cup of tea in hand, on last week's rest day was an obvious reference to an iconic picture of "Major Tom", cup of tea in hand, which appeared in the newspaper l'Equipe the day Simpson became the first Briton to wear the yellow jersey in 1962.

The Air Force roundel which is used for the "O" in the Wiggo on his racing jersey has also aroused interest. Wiggins's tongue-in-cheek answer was that the red, white and blue was to show his affection for France's hero and king of the mountains Thomas Voeckler.

The Tour, it seems, is well on the way to boasting its first mod winner, with massive sideburns, a large collection of guitars and a loudly proclaimed love of the Who and the Jam. But part of the French liking for the rider who has dominated their Tour for the past two weeks can be explained by the fact that he spent the first six years of his road racing career in France.

"Wiggo le froggy," read a banner headline in Saturday's l'Equipe, effectively claiming the man as their own. There is a delightful irony in this: the French have not won the Tour since Bernard Hinault secured his fifth win in 1985, and three of their best teams, Française des Jeux, Crédit Agricole and Cofidis, will all have let this year's winner slip through their grasp.

Living in France, learning French and developing a near perfect accent has enabled Wiggins to speak fluently – when he so chooses – on live television after every stage. That is in glaring contrast with Lance Armstrong, who never picked up French. Wiggins's mastery of cycling's lingua franca derived partly from a morning television programme which he used to record in his flat in Nantes, but also from his widely reported talent for mimicry. Simpson was similarly fluent in French, able to produce cultured puns and brutal put-downs alike.

"He had a surprising knowledge of cycling culture," said the French climber Jean-Cyril Robin, a team mate at Wiggins's first team, La Française des Jeux, which he joined in 2002. "I had no idea who he was but he knew who I was."

His directeur sportif at the team, Marc Madiot, noticed the same thing. "He was like a big giraffe who's just come out of the bush, a bit turbulent," said Madiot. "He was a simple character, completely in love with track cycling, with no rough edges and just wanted to earn a living."

Philippe Brunel, chief sportswriter at l'Equipe, feels that if Wiggins has hints of Simpson off the bike, in the sharp way he dresses and his readiness with a put-down, he is not the same kind of champion when he races. "He's come the same way, through France, which is a kind of unavoidable rite of passage for British cyclists. You can't compare generations. Wiggins is a product of his generation, like [five times Tour winner] Jacques Anquetil, a rider who focused on the time trial stages and controlled the opposition in the mountains," Brunel says. "I think Wiggins is more interesting as a personality than as a rider. He has a huge personality."

While some fans have criticised Sky's style of racing as dull, Brunel feels the British professional team have brought back to cycling some of the sport's old lustre. He says: "I'm glad Sky are winning, they have allure. They have brought a sophistication back to cycling, a courtesy we lost in the Armstrong years. There have been many people who have approached cycling in a cynical way, without putting anything back, but Sky have restored some politesse."